Author Archives: KEMARA GOPEESINGH

“Who  ran the  Number Racket? Mom” is an autobiography written by Bridgett Davis about her  mom who gamed the system and won. Davis’s father found it very difficult to get and keep work in the auto plants & in the auto factories, in the city, because there was racial discrimination towards the migrated black men who tried to get work. However, to get money, her mom had asked her brother for $100, because he had a stable job, and with that she started an “underground illegal gambling business.” When her mother started doing this, it was during a conflicting time of the fight for civil rights. It took about five years until the state lottery commission found her mom’s underground operation, and decided to be in direct competition with it. Bridgett on the other hand, was all over the place, because she couldn’t brag about how proud she is of  her mom, despite the fact that what she did was illegal. What she was really  proud of her mom for, was that she was actually earning loads of cash with this “business.” With that money she bought multiple properties, which Bridgett was then able to inherit, that she sold and used to invest in a co-op in New York City, in Brooklyn. One of the main issues that arose in the book is the struggle for black people to earn some kind of change during the struggle for civil rights, without being discriminated against, also known as systemic racism. Bridgetts family was lucky enough to have  made it through after so many riots, and her dad’s dilemma of not being able to get and keep a job, because of the discriminatory practices in the factories. “She had migrated with my dad and my three oldest [siblings] to Detroit in the mid ’50s.” I thought this quote was very significant, because up till now we still have people migrating everywhere, because they want a different lifestyle or they felt unsafe in their neighborhood, but they still are being treated differently than everyone else. With that being said, Bridgett’s story about her mom is similar to how my mom grew up. Yes she did struggle to get money, but not during a problematic time. My mom and her family grew up with very little money, and my mom just had enough money to get rides to and from school. She worked as a cashier in something similar to a dollar store. I say similar, because it wasn’t a dollar store in the U.S, it was in Trinidad, so the prices were different, but they sold the same stuff. This story made me look at the fact that people can still be cruel even during hard times from a different perspective.